Christmas, Donna, and New Scripture Songs

Christmas Brunch at Cornerstone Alliance Church

Christmas Brunch at Cornerstone Alliance Church

Merry Christmas from our dogs - you would not believe how long we worked to get this shot - someone needs to train those dogs!!

Merry Christmas from our dogs – you would not believe how long we worked to get this shot – someone needs to train those dogs!!

I had such a fun time last weekend with Cornerstone Alliance Church in Marion, OH! This was such a sweet bunch of women, and a beautiful event. We had such a wonderful time with Sue, the coordinator, and her husband and team – very special people! They do a big annual women’s brunch, and since Christmas is my favorite time of year, it was so fun to really focus on “Immanuel, God With Us” and the true meaning of the season!

With fun things, though, there are often hard things. We also learned very recently that my assistant, Donna, has a new form of cancer and it’s very serious. She has had cancer twice before, and this is not a recurrence, but rather, a new kind. She had surgery this morning, and while she came through very well, they found in surgery that it has spread, and is officially stage 4. This is such hard news to hear – I just love Donna and her whole family, and we’ve been working together for years. Her last cancer was also stage 4 and they told her at the time that she only had a few months but tried an experimental treatment and 11 years later she is still here – God can and does heal, and we are praying. But I hate knowing that she has to go through this again. She will take this month off to heal from the surgery and then will start chemo – we would absolutely covet your prayers for Donna and her whole family!

In other news, I have started the writing for a new Scripture memory project. Over the years, many of you know that I have written several mini-albums of Scripture memory songs for kids – they are word for word from the NIV and include references, and we’ve always used them for a VBS curriculum along with a play that I write with my writing partner Terry every year. They’ve just commissioned me to write 3 more years worth of music, so I’ve got 18 new songs to do, and we’ve decided to publish them along with the other mini-albums in one giant Scripture Memory collection. I’m writing a song a day right now, so hoping to have them all written by Christmas and then we will start production after the New Year. They are fun and upbeat, and aimed at grade school kids, and we are really looking forward to seeing how God will use them!

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